Tag: good and bad

Accept Your Shadow Side (Acts 7:30-40)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

“Forty years later, in the desert near Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to Moses in the flame of a burning bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he went to take a closer look, the voice of the Lord called out to him, ‘I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with terror and did not dare to look.

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groans and have come down to rescue them. Now go, for I am sending you back to Egypt.’

“So God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected when they demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, God sent Moses to be their ruler and savior. And by means of many wonders and miraculous signs, he led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness for forty years.

“Moses himself told the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people.’Moses was with our ancestors, the assembly of God’s people in the wilderness, when the angel spoke to him at Mount Sinai. And there Moses received life-giving words to pass on to us.

“But our ancestors refused to listen to Moses. They rejected him and wanted to return to Egypt. They told Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t know what has become of this Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.’ (New Living Translation)

We humans are a confusing paradox of sinner and saint. We are majestic people, created in the image and likeness of a good God. We are also profoundly fallen, touched by sin in every area of our lives. Our hearts exist with both light and darkness, having the capacity for both incredible altruism as well as inexplicable evil.

So then, it will do no good to retreat into binary definitions of people as being either good or bad. No, we shine and shadow at the same time. What really gets us into a terrible mess is when we ignore or deny our shadow selves. We then demonize the other while claiming purity for ourselves.

This is precisely what occurred when Stephen stood and spoke to a group of his fellow Jews. They stubbornly refused to acknowledge their shadow side. And it resulted in Stephen’s stoning and death. Whereas Stephen lifted and brought to light the unseemly aspects of their collective heritage, the people wanted nothing to do with it.

The Martyrdom of Stephen

In our present day, responses that do not want to acknowledge the shadow side include statements such as, “Quit being so negative. We focus on the positive. Expel this recalcitrant troublemaker once and for all!”

Oy. Acceptance cuts two ways. We must accept both our blessings and our curses. The acceptance of reality will not occur apart from a solid self-acceptance of who we are and how we are feeling in any given situation. On the practical level, it works something like the following story…

Several years ago, I went on a leadership retreat in the Canadian wilderness. We were so far out in the sticks that we needed special first aid training before leaving because if someone got severely injured it would be hours before any medical attention could be received. There was no cell phone service, no towns, no anything except mile after square mile of wilderness. 

One day, I was canoeing with a group of leaders, far out into the Canadian wilderness where there were no towns or people anywhere near us. It was very windy on this day in late May – which meant the water was still ice cold in Canada. One of the canoes capsized. We had to act quickly and deliberately – which was no small feat in a stiff wind. More than fifteen minutes would result in hypothermia for the two people in the water.

I did not like being in that situation. In fact, I didn’t much like the Canadian wilderness. Too many black flies and giant mosquitoes for me. My shadow side was coming out. But here I was, and I had to accept the reality I was in. One of the lessons I learned in that moment was that acceptance can sit alongside other reactions and emotions.

For example, a person can be outraged by an injustice, as Stephen was, and accept that it is a reality. Acceptance does not mean complacency or giving up. We can accept something while at the same time trying to make it better.

I also needed to accept what was happening inside of me. I was cold and worried. Trying to push those feelings away would have only added to the stress of the situation. If I failed to accept what was true about myself, I would be less able to deal with the situation, and so, would compromise my ability to help two people at risk.

I needed to accept the entire circumstance, including myself. Accepting what is inside gave me more influence over the situation, not less. Self-acceptance became the key to acceptance of unwanted conditions, and more importantly, acceptance of one another as human beings.

In that moment of rescuing two people (which ultimately proved successful) I became aware of a part of myself – the part that gets afraid and irritated – and chose not to stuff it or deny its existence.

I became the guy who talked to the panicked people in the water and kept them as calm as possible so that the others could get them out. I was able to do my part to help fearful people because I acknowledged and accepted my own fear.

Unlike my situation, however, Stephen’s experience ended in martyrdom. Just because we respond rightly, is no guarantee that everything will work out for our benefit. Rather, we say and do the things we must say and do, while leaving the results to a sovereign Lord.

It is our responsibility to work on ourselves, not others. And acceptance is the path to get there, all of it – including the shadow side – and not just part of it.

Jesus, let your mighty calmness lift me above my fears and frustrations. By your deep patience, give me tranquility and stillness of soul in you. Make me in this, and in all things, more and more like you. Amen.

From Good to Bad (1 Kings 11:26-40)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Also, Jeroboam son of Nebat rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon’s officials, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, and his mother was a widow named Zeruah.

Here is the account of how he rebelled against the king: Solomon had built the terraces and had filled in the gap in the wall of the city of David his father. Now Jeroboam was a man of standing, and when Solomon saw how well the young man did his work, he put him in charge of the whole labor force of the tribes of Joseph.

About that time Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh met him on the way, wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone out in the country, and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. Then he said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says:

“‘See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and give you ten tribes. But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molek the god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my decrees and laws as David, Solomon’s father, did.

“‘But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon’s hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who obeyed my commands and decrees. I will take the kingdom from his son’s hands and give you ten tribes. I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name. 

“However, as for you, I will take you, and you will rule over all that your heart desires; you will be king over Israel. If you do whatever I command you and walk in obedience to me and do what is right in my eyes by obeying my decrees and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. I will humble David’s descendants because of this, but not forever.’”

Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon’s death. (New International Version)

The prophet Ahijah speaking to the future king, Jeroboam, by Gerard Hoet, 1728

The Good and the Bad

People were originally created by a good God for the purpose of goodness. After forming the first people, Adam and Eve, God looked at humanity and said that it was “very good.” (Genesis 1:26-28, 31)

Yet, even though we all have been created good, that which is bad entered the world by means of the devil. And ever since that time, people in every era have struggled between their inherent design and their innate desires for something different. (Genesis 3:1-20)

Even King Solomon, with all of his great and God-given wisdom, eventually drifted into the bad. He succumbed to allowing other gods to come alongside the worship of the One true God. And there were consequences to those choices.

Recovering the Word “Sin”

“Sin” is a word that isn’t much used anymore. On the one hand, this is okay since the term has been much abused by many a misguided preacher. Yet, on the other hand, it’s a word which needs to be recovered, so that we will learn to avoid the bad and live into our good as image-bearers of God.

As the head of all Israel and Judah, Solomon had a grand kingdom. His father, David, was a man after God’s own heart. So, God established a covenant with David that there would always be one of his descendants on the throne. Solomon followed in his father’s footsteps and expanded the borders of Israel, bringing a level of prosperity and wealth never seen before or since.

And yet, either despite or because of Solomon’s wild success, bits of disobedience began to occur. Perhaps Solomon simply rested on his own laurels; or maybe he could not envision anything other than ongoing abundance. But for whatever reason, King Solomon started gravitating toward having more than he needed and ignored the instructions given to the people by God:

The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. (Deuteronomy 17:16-17, NIV)

And that is precisely what happened. Solomon had 700 wives (women of royal birth) and 300 concubines (women of common origin). And all those women served a variety of gods in a cornucopia of religious practices – some of which were downright inhumane and unjust. (1 Kings 11:1-13)

None of us are immune from falling into the guilt and shame of disobedient sin. For Solomon, this had the consequence of having the kingship almost completely ripped from his descendants to another man’s, Jeroboam.

Individuals, institutions, and nations have the potential for both great good, as well as heinous evil. When anyone begins to be concerned only for themselves and rests on their success, instead of the Lord, they have set up themselves for a collapse through the displeasure of God.

Stories of people who topple into sin are all close to the same – having some power, they use it to assert control over another person or group to obtain whatever they want. King Solomon violated God’s law. Not only that, but when he saw his control threatened, he sought to kill Jeroboam. Perhaps Solomon thought he was above all this, and believed he could do whatever he wanted. But he couldn’t.

Sin causes us to sell-out our principles 

Sin only begets more sin until we deal with it. Sin will always distort the truth so that we minimize the impact of our words, choices, and actions. Truth celebrates openness and honesty; sin seeks the shadows and prizes secrecy. 

The first step to dealing with sin is not to minimize it, ignore it, or pretend it isn’t a big deal. If we do not go down this path of truth, then we will be forever encrusting our lives with ways of ensuring that no one ever knows the sinful secrets. 

In fact, much of religious legalism is nothing more than a person piling on the rules in order for others to not see the sin that hides deep within. In Christianity, turning from the sin and receiving the grace of forgiveness in Jesus Christ is the true and real path to spiritual wholeness, happiness, and success in life.

Results that satisfy us do not necessarily satisfy God

Solomon accomplished what he wanted – some of it very good, and some of it very bad. The good was celebrated, and the bad was covered up. Yet, God sees all of it, celebrating with us the good, but not going with us down the path of self-indulgent sin.

We cannot simply assume that because we do something, and there was no immediate lightning strike, that it was okay. It does not matter if it happened yesterday, last month, or twenty years ago. If we did not deal with the sin, God is not satisfied because he wants to dispense grace; love and a flourishing soul cannot happen if we keep putting things out-of-sight out-of-mind. To only satisfy ourselves is being a spiritual cannibal who eats other people alive.

Outward success and abundance means little to God if the inward state leadership is a vacuous soul, bereft of authentic spiritual connection, with no determination toward God’s intentions for a particular course of action. 

Sin is not something to simply be managed; it is to be put to death through the cross of Christ, and applied to life through intentional spiritual practices meant to genuinely connect with God. 

For the Christian, to do less is to wander into a morass of consequences that damage others, not to mention harming ourselves. So, let us do the work of soul care so that the common good of all will thrive in the grace of God in Christ.

God, you have given all peoples one common origin.
It is your will that they be gathered together
as one family in yourself.
Fill the hearts of mankind with the fire of your love
and with the desire to ensure justice for all.
By sharing the good things you give us,
may we secure an equality for all
our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
May there be an end to division, strife and war.
May there be a dawning of a truly human society
built on love and peace.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

Learning a Lesson from Balak and Balaam (Numbers 22:1-21)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Balaam and King Balak, by Maerten de Vos, 1585

Israel moved from there to the hills of Moab, where they camped across the Jordan River from the town of Jericho.

When King Balak of Moab and his people heard how many Israelites there were and what they had done to the Amorites, he and the Moabites were terrified and panicked. They said to the Midianite leaders, “That huge mob of Israelites will wipe out everything in sight, like a bull eating grass in a field.”

So King Balak sent a message to Balaam son of Beor, who lived among his relatives in the town of Pethor near the Euphrates River. It said:

I need your help. A large group of people has come here from Egypt and settled near my territory. They are too powerful for us to defeat, so would you come and place a curse on them? Maybe then we can run them off. I know that anyone you bless will be successful, but anyone you curse will fail.

The leaders of Moab and Midian left and took along money to pay Balaam. When they got to his house, they gave him Balak’s message.

“Spend the night here,” Balaam replied, “and tomorrow I will tell you the Lord’s answer.” So the officials stayed at his house.

During the night, God asked Balaam, “Who are these people at your house?”

“They are messengers from King Balak of Moab,” Balaam answered. “He sent them to ask me to go to Moab and put a curse on the people who have come there from Egypt. They have settled everywhere around him, and he wants to run them off.”

But God replied, “Don’t go with Balak’s messengers. I have blessed those people who have come from Egypt, so don’t curse them.”

The next morning, Balaam said to Balak’s officials, “Go on back home. The Lord says I cannot go with you.”

The officials left and told Balak that Balaam refused to come.

Then Balak sent a larger group of officials, who were even more important than the first ones. They went to Balaam and told him that Balak had said, “Balaam, if you come to Moab, I’ll pay you very well and do whatever you ask. Just come and place a curse on these people.”

Balaam answered, “Even if Balak offered me a palace full of silver or gold, I wouldn’t do anything to disobey the Lord my God. You are welcome to spend the night here, just as the others did. I will find out if the Lord has something else to say about this.”

That night, God said, “Balaam, I’ll let you go to Moab with Balak’s messengers, but do only what I say.”

So Balaam got up the next morning and saddled his donkey, then left with the Moabite officials. (Contemporary English Version)

 Art by Sefira Lightstone

Israel was at the cusp of finally entering the Promised Land. They had been delivered out of Egyptian slavery, wandered in the desert for forty years, and defeated all the tribes of the Transjordan in order to get to where they were going.

Fear had fallen on all the people surrounding Israel because of their success. The nation of Moab knew that Israel would not be defeated in battle; but maybe they could be defeated in a different way. So, they hired a professional seer to put a curse on Israel.

The seer, or diviner, Balaam, initially refused the offer, even though it was a lucrative one. But he finally acceded and went, with the caveat that he could only do what the Lord tells him to do.

Balak, the Moabite, desperately wanted Balaam to curse the Israelites. Balak essentially hired the most famous and effective diviner he could find. He fully expected all this to work in his favor, in order to give him an advantage over Israel.

Was Balaam a real prophet of God, or just a self-serving shaman? Although our text for today is essentially positive in its tone, subsequent generations look back on Balaam and understand him as in league with evil. (Numbers 31:8, 16; Joshua 13:22; Micah 6:5; Jude 11)

Although as biblical readers we might be somewhat flummoxed about what to really make of Balaam, he really serves as a mirror to the nature of humanity. For we are all people who are capable of both great evil and altruistic good, and everything in between. There is no such thing as a person who is all bad or all good; all of us are some sort of mix of the two.

Therefore, every one of us needs to be vigilant in how we shall then live – what choices we will make, what sort of goals we will establish, and what kind of people we will listen to and follow. If we seek to take some lessons from this story, perhaps we might do well to consider the motives of the main characters Balak and Balaam.

Balak was filled with dread and fear. Sickening fear and anxiety is most certainly one of the great emotional and spiritual hazards of our time. His debilitating fear was that he and his nation would be destroyed by Israel.

Yet, if you consider this, it is a groundless anxiety. Israel was all too willing to pass through on their way to the Promised Land without a fight. It was only when attacked that they fought back and destroyed other nations.

Balak wasted a bunch of wealth and worry on something that wasn’t even going to happen, unless he himself provoked it. It is likely that worry, fear, and anxiety, like Balak, is not serving you well; it’s keeping you under the tyranny of what might happen. And it is in such a state that we make poor decisions, such as consulting diviners to assuage us of the worry.

Balaam allowed himself to be manipulated into believing he could make his small fortune. After all, this nation of people needed him, and he perhaps vainly imagined he was doing the right thing and being above board.

But Yahweh is not like other gods. In reality there was no way Balaam was going to cajole God to get what he wanted. It may have worked that way in paganism, but wasn’t going to happen with the sovereign Lord of the universe. In the end, it was God who used Balaam for God’s own purpose – and not the other way around.

Some people want they want, and arrogantly assume that if they pray a lot and have their requests offered on many prayer chains, or that if they just use the right language and exhibit enough passion, that God will surely have to answer them and give them what they want. But Christian prayer is not like other prayer:

When you pray, don’t talk on and on as people do who don’t know God. They think God likes to hear long prayers. Don’t be like them. Your Father knows what you need even before you ask. (Matthew 6:7-8, CEV)

Everything comes down to trusting God and obeying his commands. When all is said and done, after all the fear and worry are spent, there is God, waiting for us to come and place faith in the divine law and promises.

Everything you were taught can be put into a few words:

Respect and obey God!
This is what life
    is all about.
God will judge
    everything we do,
even what is done in secret,
    whether good or bad. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, CEV) Amen.

Have Some Spiritual Discernment (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Prophet, by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, 1902

Prophets or interpreters of dreams may promise a miracle or a wonder, in order to lead you to worship and serve gods that you have not worshiped before. Even if what they promise comes true, do not pay any attention to them. The Lord your God is using them to test you, to see if you love the Lord with all your heart. Follow the Lord and honor him; obey him and keep his commands; worship him and be faithful to him. 

But put to death any interpreters of dreams or prophets that tell you to rebel against the Lord, who rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves. Such people are evil and are trying to lead you away from the life that the Lord has commanded you to live. They must be put to death, in order to rid yourselves of this evil. (Good News Translation)

It’s a foolish notion that a servant of God can have a moonlighting gig with another god. A shortsighted philosophy believes that worshiping God on the Sabbath allows one to then do whatever they want on the other six days. And a downright deadly act is to become enamored with a miracle and then follow the miracle worker who did it, even though they want nothing to do with devotion to the Lord.

It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bushel basket of them. Just one rotten egg in a six egg omelet will ruin the entire thing. And one bad prophet amongst the people will end up destroying the congregation. Evil isn’t something to dabble with; instead, wickedness is something to rid yourself of altogether.

“If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” Jesus (Matthew 5:29-30, NIV)

Jesus declared that believers must take decisive, drastic, and radical action against idolatry. Serving other gods, along with the one true God, requires an amputation. The biblical text of both Testaments leaves us no room to believe that it’s okay to dabble in things that the Lord condemns. And if we think we are not hurting anybody to hold onto such a thought, we very much need to think again.

True prophets and preachers don’t lead people into idolatry, no matter how spectacular their omens, wonders, or miraculous signs. False prophets and preachers exist only to test the sincerity of a believer’s love for the Lord. Israel was to take decisive and radical measures to rid themselves of false gods. Failing to do so would certainly lead to idolatry.

These are the regulations and the case laws that you must carefully keep in the fertile land the Lord, your ancestors’ God, has given to you to possess for as long as you live on that land:

You must completely destroy every place where the nations that you are displacing worshipped their gods—whether on high mountains or hills or under leafy green trees. Rip down their altars and shatter their sacred stones. Burn their sacred poles with fire. Hack their gods’ idols into pieces. Wipe out their names from that place.

Don’t act like they did toward the Lord your God! (Deuteronomy 12:1-4, CEB)

Believers of every era need to learn that the occurrence of supernatural manifestations, and/or wild success in ministry, does not automatically authenticate the prophet or preacher.

Theology always takes precedence over miraculous signs and wonders. A growing church doesn’t necessarily mean that God’s favor rests upon it, anymore than a declining church signals God’s displeasure. This is why we are to never add to or take away from God’s Word to people. (Deuteronomy 12:32)

“It is the nature of false prophets to create a conscience where there is none, and to cause conscience to disappear where it does exist.”

Martin Luther

If Christians are ever invited to disobey and rebel against the words and ways of Jesus, they are to refuse the offer. This, of course, requires actually knowing God’s Word and handling the worship of God and the interpretation of God’s Word with great care, humility, and wisdom.

There are many times that false preachers are quite sincere, believing that they are proclaimers of truth, when they are really leading others astray. We are always to be students of Holy Scripture, consistently discerning the difference between truth and error, right and wrong. Let us be careful to avoid the situation of the believers in the New Testament book of Hebrews:

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14, NIV)

Let’s be people who take the time and effort to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus; and be patient and humble enough to learn over time what truly pleases the Lord.

Blessed God, give your servant a discerning heart to govern, lead, and teach your people, so that we may all be able to distinguish between right and wrong, doing your divine will and obeying your divine commands, to the glory of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.